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“It was always there for all to see, the great Celtic stone cross barring the way to Brexit. Finally, as crunch day nears, the government and its Brextremists have to confront what was always a roadblock to their fantasies. They pretended it was nothing. Reviving that deep-dyed, centuries-old contempt for the Irish, they have dismissed it with an imperial fly-whisk as a minor irritation. No longer.”

And see:

“The DUP also insists on no hard border, rightly resisting any suggestion of moving customs posts to Irish ports: most of Northern Ireland’s trade moves across the sea to the rest of UK, not to the Republic. Above all, the symbolism of any special status for Northern Ireland that divides it from the mainland cuts to the marrow of its sense of identity [my emphasis], more deeply than all the identity and sovereignty emotions that plunged us into this Brexit morass in the first place.”

Yeah. Well, that’s just tough shit. Protestants’ presence in Northern Ireland was the result of a centuries-long brutal, murderous process of land appropriation and illegal settlement. No one’s asking them to leave, and it’s ludicrous to think their cultural or religious rights won’t be respected in a united Irish Republic or that they will live segregated in any way except in one of their own making. They can keep their marrow-deep identity. Just not by continuing the injustice that it’s based on.

This, however, is an interesting possibility:

“Seeking flexibility among some of the most rigid of UK politicians might seem like tilting at windmills. But we should consider the obligations of Sinn Féin too. Isn’t it time it reviewed its age-old stance? Seven Sinn Féin MPs are elected to Westminster but refuse to take their seats as it involves taking an oath of allegiance. Since 1918, its abstentionism has been unshakable. But right now that stand sees them throw away power and influence while the DUP rides high at Westminster. Think how strong these Sinn Féin remainers would be if they took up their seats and helped to tip the Brexit balance.”

“It’s when immigrant/migrants/refugees are leaving that you should worry.

“My often-stated opinion that the West has both the resources and the historical obligation to take in every-body that needs and wants to come still holds. That the European Union’s migration agreement with Turkey marked people fleeing a country in the condition of Afghanistan’s as “economic migrants” was a scandal. But when you’ve got a problem with Poles — whit-er, better-educated, harder-working, more Christian, cuter, better-mannered and less binge-drinking than you — thenyou really do have a problem…

“America’s best-kept secret, despite what trailer trash Donald Trump and his crew tell you, is that immigrants are a self-selecting group of already highly motivated people who are connected and aware enough to have heard that things are better where you are. And they’re not coming to take that from you; they’re coming to improve it. They’re the A-list crew that crashes your party because they’ve heard your parties are the ones to crash and in the process makes them even more of the hottest ticket in town. It’s a self-fufilling, auto-re-perpetuating process.

“New York, in other words.”

…

“Olympian Zeus, king of the gods, will tear your head off if you’re unwelcoming to the stranger — or worse, for a Greek, make you ugly — so you better watch out. He comes in disguise to test you. Like the angels to Abraham.”

…

“So…wooops…there they are. Here they come! They’ve arrived. And they’ve instantly made Greece a more interesting place. And interesting is strong. And strength is freedom.”

And Mehta:

“Countries that accept immigrants, like Canada, are doing better than countries that don’t, like Japan. But whether Trump or May or Orban likes it or not, immigrants will keep coming, to pursue happiness and a better life for their children. To the people who voted for them: Do not fear the newcomers. Many are young and will pay the pensions for the elderly, who are living longer than ever before. They will bring energy with them, for no one has more enterprise than someone who has left their distant home to make the difficult journey here, whether they’ve come legally or not. And given basic opportunities, they will be better behaved than the youth in the lands they move to, because immigrants in most countries have lower crime rates than the native-born. They will create jobs. They will cook and dance and write in new and exciting ways. They will make their new countries richer, in all senses of the word. The immigrant armada that is coming to your shores is actually a rescue fleet.” [My emphases]

Was that one of the subtexts or even the skeletal structure of “The Night of…”, the brilliant mini-series and incredible ethnographic essay on New York from HBO for which Ahmed won his Emmy: good, criminally uninclined, son of hard-working Pakistani immigrant parents from Jackson Heights, with “…a shining shining futureSadda bright si“ (see full video at bottom), gets led to his doom by decadent white girl? or is he a good Muslim boy led astray by Hindu seductress disguised as lawyer who then screws herself in the process? (I have to admit that the sexual scratch-marks on the back of Ahmed’s character, Naz, that come to light in one courtroom scene put me in mind of the Gita Govinda.) Or more misogynist than that even: that women — period. — are trouble?

Some of the frustrating contradictions of identity politics in the Washington Post‘s “Riz Ahmed makes history as the first South Asian man to win an Emmy acting award“. If Riz Ahmed wants to not be type-cast as a Muslim or South Asian man every time he gets a role, but to eventually just play a character called “Dave”, then he’s going to need his fans’ help and have them not get apoplectically happy because he’s the first “Asian” (whatever that means) to win an Emmy, but because he’s a great actor who won an Emmy.

From Bosnia to Bengal – the purpose of this blog

I'm Nicholas Bakos, a.k.a. "NikoBako." I'm Greek (Roman really, but only a handful of people today fully understand what I'm talking about when I say that, so I use "Greek" for shorthand). I'm from New York. I live all over the place these days. The rest should become obvious from the blog.